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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

FFS How to make DH do things ^properly^?????

81 replies

PruniStuffing · 14/12/2005 19:39

I'm sure I'm not alone here. I know I'm not in RL, because I do not know any women who have dps who are totally competent, able to predict what will need to be done then either do it or organise for it to be done. I feel atm like I am swimming in treacle. I have to organise everything, and it's grinding me down. My dh is a lovely lovely bloke, but (what a cliche) seems not to listen at all and most of the time I am not a nag but tiredness and the relentnessness of it all is turning me into a shrew and I loathe that.

OK so I need a few practical suggestions to prevent me from strangling the man I love. What do you do?

OP posts:
bossykate · 17/12/2005 16:29

haircuts, did i mention the children's haircuts.... must stop this now

foxinsocks · 17/12/2005 16:37

pruni, I think you have to accept at some stage that your dh will never be the organised adult that you want him to be. It took me years of marriage to get to this stage! When I worked full-time, we had a cleaner so a lot of those 'inwardly seething moments' (brilliant description!) were avoided (though all the organisational ones were still there). Once we stopped having the cleaner, I realised what I was faced with.

Dh had never ever cleaned a thing in his life and he is now of the age where that really isn't going to change. He can't stand the mundane tidying/cleaning/organising that comes with having a family and he comes with more clutter than me and both kids (so he comes home from work and there's literally a trail behind him of 'stuff').

I agree with bobbybob - you have to find stuff they can do and let them stick to it. Dh can take out the rubbish (when he remembers), empty the dishwasher, change linen on a bed - he is also very good at chasing ds round a football field and listening to dd read.

It's such an old cliche, but I really do think that men don't suddenly morph into the creatures we want them to be and I think your first step will probably be accepting that he's not going to do all the things you want him to do and finding some that he is capable of doing most of the time!

Original poster
PruniStuffing · 17/12/2005 16:39

Oh he can do all sorts, he just wouldn't if nobody reminded him! I think you're right, though.

OP posts:
moondog · 17/12/2005 16:56

Pruni,out of interest,if he were asked,what would he say were your shortcomings??

Original poster
PruniStuffing · 17/12/2005 16:59

Yes I've been wondering that...
I don't think he knows that I spend vast amounts of time on MN moaning about him, but if he were to find out, I suspect that might make his list.

OP posts:
Original poster
PruniStuffing · 17/12/2005 17:00

PS You sound exactly like my school form tutor...

OP posts:
moondog · 17/12/2005 17:03

Oh God,do I????!
Just thinking about looking at things from different angles.

It seems to be the thorn in the side of so many relationships doesn't it?
Re comment about lesbians earlier on,remember Joan Collins saying after one of her countless divorces
'I don't need a man,I need a wife.'

My dh is the opposite. Completely in control of everything. That is rather annoying too....

Original poster
PruniStuffing · 17/12/2005 17:07

Well there are limits, but I find capability - not control - very attractive.

OP posts:
moondog · 17/12/2005 17:22

lol
He is lovely actually.
Mind you,I'm alone with the children most of the time,so am generally taking control-always look forward to him coming back so that I can relinquish aforesaid.

It sounds so naff,but a Serious Talk at an otherwise pleasant time (dinner out,sans enfant/s) is always a good place to start.

bossykate · 17/12/2005 18:24

i'm sorry i will need some help getting from:

  • intelligent adults can do a competent job of household tasks
  • intelligent adults can provide some input to the decision of where the family will go on holiday

to:

  • oh bless the little dear won't change

sorry.

Original poster
PruniStuffing · 17/12/2005 18:32

Yes BK I do know what you mean but my capitulation on that point is based on years of trying, really. I'm not very 'Oh bless' about it, more like FFS do you mean I have to put up with it? I think in the absence of a sure fire technique - as I was hoping someone would be able to point me to - I will have to resort to the list-type solution. Not great and not my greatest wish but better than nothing?

OP posts:
motherinfurriercoatnoknickers · 17/12/2005 18:33

I see your point, BK. The father of my children holds down a good, serious job for which surely he has to be rather organised. I would very much like him to import some of that capacity to the domestic sphere.

(having said which must now go and eat the meal he cooked )

foxinsocks · 17/12/2005 18:36

bossykate! I don't think it's very much 'ah bless' but 'the amount of seething becomes too much and something has to give and it becomes a decision not to seethe but to live with said-useless bloke'

bossykate · 17/12/2005 18:47

quite, mi.

btw - was coming back to this to say that while i stand by my previous assertions, i don't think that for everyone tidy/organised/engaged = good and go-with-the-flow/there are more important things in life than tidy beds = bad - i honestly don't.

i think it is an issue primarily of compatibility - so where there is a disconnect in either or both execution or engagement there will be a need for negotiation.

DinosaurInAManger · 17/12/2005 19:25

Pruni, a question - do you actually allow him to do stuff around the house, without criticising what he does? I

rarrie · 17/12/2005 21:26

Another vote for the schedule. I have another DH who is lovely but just doesn't get it... so he has a list of very specific tasks that he has to do weekly (with dates of when they have to be done by), and I have mine. Its sad but it was the only way we found after I turned into a nag!

Original poster
PruniStuffing · 17/12/2005 21:37

Dinosaur!! It's not for me a question of allowing him, but to answer your question, I definitely don't go round criticizing him. He does quite a bit. He cooks - brilliantly. But he loves cooking, so it's not a great stretch for him. My gripe is having to constantly ask him to share the predictable domestic duties, not an issue with me not finding his contribution up to scratch.

Much earlier in the thread I talked about him screwing up dd's arrangements one day last week and I did, I admit, criticize him then, because it made a difference to her and she's too little to be able to deal with it. And he hadn't listened to me despite my knowing he needed certain details and going to the effort of giving him those details and I was pissed off with that.

I'm not a total harridan you know!

OP posts:
Original poster
PruniStuffing · 17/12/2005 21:38

Mind you I've just reread the thread title and perhaps it should have been worded differently... D'oh.

OP posts:
hercules · 17/12/2005 21:38

I've said it before and I'll say it again and run. Are these dh's some of you are married to kids or adults with a shared responsibility for bringing up kids and living in a household?

runs away very fast.

Original poster
PruniStuffing · 17/12/2005 21:39

Quite, hercules. That line doesn't go down very well in Casa Pruni, though...

OP posts:
Chandra · 17/12/2005 21:40

Sorry, I have not read the full thread but from my own experience I deduct that living him to fend for himself for a couple of months can really bring some changes. If you can survive it.

rockinrobinkie · 17/12/2005 21:42

Pruni - how typical is the example you gave below? To me there are all sorts of things about it that would make it perfectly reasonable for your dh to have acted as he did: particularly: it was for your father; and you'd bought so you were in control so far, so where is the implication it should now be someone else's job? In those circumstances I would think it nearly weird if my dh took over and wrapped a present I was clearly organising for a member of my own family. Bit like the time my bro went sailing with a (male) friend and on the last day the friend appeared and said "I've done your packing".

I know this may be the mistake of looking too closely at specifics - so can you give other examples?

DinosaurInAManger · 18/12/2005 09:16

Pruni, don't be offended - I only asked, because as you know my DH is a SAHD and I work, and he's forever moaning that I don't pull my weight at home and leave everything to him - but if I do something like put on a load of washing, even if I put in everything in sight, I always get grief from him for missing something out etc. So frankly a lot of the time I just don't bother trying to be proactive about doing stuff at home, because it's never good enough for him. So I often wonder whether perhaps other people are like this too.

northerner · 18/12/2005 09:30

Oh Pruni, your dh and mine must be from the same mold. My dh never does anything unless I specifically ask him, even down to bathing ds and putting him to bed. Then if I ask twice I get called a nag and accused of turning into my mother. Then if I get upset I get accused of being over emotional. WTF?

Drives me mad.

XmasPud · 18/12/2005 09:37

we have an online family diary and it emails him half an hour/ten mins before he has to do something - I can set how many reminders, colour code them as priorities, give as long or short messages as I want from "remember I am out so it is your turn to get xxx from school - leave NOW!" to the weekly reminder "BIN DAY..YOU HAVE TWO HOURS BEFORE THEY GET HERE..." Along with all birthdays, anniversairies, car mot deadline, you name it. It is great. Somehow typing out reminders in my own time rather than those awful conversations that go "what do you mean you just forgot?!!".. or "how many times do I need to tell you.."
Works for us